


An Unwanted Reprieve

by Lingering_Lorekeeper



Series: The Tempest and the Silver Mesmer [1]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game), Guild Wars Series (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Disabled Character, Flash Fic, Guilt, Original Character-centric, Other, POV Second Person, Prompt Fill, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25524091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lingering_Lorekeeper/pseuds/Lingering_Lorekeeper
Summary: The desert is not kind. Nor are you, to yourself.(Prompt fill: "Thank you" vs "I'm sorry." For anonymous.)
Relationships: Player Character (Guild Wars)/Original Character(s)
Series: The Tempest and the Silver Mesmer [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1849330
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	An Unwanted Reprieve

**Author's Note:**

> [Prompt source.](https://sidebloggable.tumblr.com/post/172973494179/edit-added-a-typed-version-of-the-prompts-under)  
> Mid-PoF, events referenced happened during HoT.  
> OC blurbs in [series description.](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1849330) This one's from Falche's POV.

There are many places in Tyria that are unkind, but none have made you feel as helpless as the Crystal Desert has.

You do your best to keep up. You really, really do. The raptor helps. The heat, the sand, and the sun don't, though, and by the end of the second day on the trail, you're too nauseous to eat. You sleep it off, and you feel well enough the next day to wave off your companions' concerns, but by noon the pain behind your eyes has grown to a crescendo and you all but fall from the saddle.

You spend the rest of that day curled in the back of a dark tent, drifting in and out of delirium. She's there, too. Your skin stings at the slightest touch, but she finds ways to help you regardless - cooling the still-torrid air with ice magic, and bringing you water that she helps you drink, her hands as light as she can manage on yours. The hours pass. She stays.

And you are wracked with guilt. Every second that she spends here, nursing you, is another second that Balthazar is free. Every second spent on you is another second closer to the destruction of Elona, and the world.

She's taking another cup from your hands, when - despite yourself - you blurt out, "I'm sorry."

She stops. "What for?" she asks.

_For dragging you down.  
For not keeping up.  
For being useless.  
Maybe I shouldn't be here. Maybe I should have died, back in the jungle._

But all you can manage is another faint "I'm sorry."

You hear her take in a deep breath, as if she's about to scold you for being silly or sentimental or some other such thing - and then she exhales, slowly, silently, tremulously.

"No, Falche," she says, her voice as broken as yours. "It's not your fault."

 _It's mine,_ says the lingering silence afterwards.

You want to reach up. You want to reassure her that none of this is her fault. You want to tell her, again, that she's the best thing that's ever happened to you, that what you should have said was not _I'm sorry_ , but _thank you_.

But you are tired, so tired, and the last of your words have gone. And so you slip, tumbling into sleep, her quiet form arched over you like a sentinel of grief.


End file.
